Adding Borders to a Video (Letterbox Effect)
I figured it out - I just needed to whip out a pen and notepad to write down the general idea of the instructions I was getting and then improv with what I had available.

For those interested in creating a letterbox effect for their video in Blender, follow these steps and you'll achieve your goal.


If you haven't done so already, drag and drop your video onto the timeline.
Select your video clip
Select the Strip option (should be on the top or bottom of your timeline, depending how your UI looks).
When you click Strip, you'll see a menu. Look for an option to Set Render Size. For me, it was hidden behind the Movie Strip menu.
Look for a menu that shows your video's dimensions (for me it was to the right of the video preview box)
Add however many pixels you'd like to the X and/or Y axis (I personally went with 60 for both sides)
Now look for a menu that shows an option for Offset (for me, that menu was directly beneath the menu where we just punched in our resolutions).
Click the checkbox for Offset and add HALF of the number of pixels you added to each axis in the previous menu. For example, if you added 60 pixels to your resolution on the x-axis, add 30 to your offset.


Congratulations, you should now have a letterbox effect on your video! The checkerbox image you see around the video should default to black once you publish your project. If you'd like a different color than black, you can select Add, which should be near Strip, and then simply click the color option. Expand the color block to equal the length of your video and place it on a lower channel of the timeline so that it doesn't overlap with the video. Select your video and find the Blend option to switch it to Alpha Over so that the video rests above the color.

(By default the color will be black. Simply select it on the timeline and find the Color option in the same menu you found the offset option for the previous steps. Change to a color of your desire).

Thanks and hope this was helpful.